Help! How to get old QMS Appletalk printer working under OSX

macrumors 6502a

I have been given a QMS-PS 410 laser printer. Can I get this to work under Mac OS X 10.2.8 with my G4 Dual 1.25 MDD machine? Any and all suggestions welcome!

Physical connection:

The printer has a parallel port and an appletalk port. My mac only has USB. I've seen an adapter for Parallel to USB... but I haven't seen appletalk to USB. Will the parallel to USB work under OS X?

Software:

Can I get drivers for (or find out if OS X supports) this printer? I went to the www.qms.com and it appears it's a discontinued printer, and the driver page confuses me... specifies "Macintosh" but doesn't specify whether it's for OS X or OS 9.

macrumors G4

I have been given a QMS-PS 410 laser printer. Can I get this to work under Mac OS X 10.2.8 with my G4 Dual 1.25 MDD machine? Any and all suggestions welcome!

Physical connection:

The printer has a parallel port and an appletalk port. My mac only has USB. I've seen an adapter for Parallel to USB... but I haven't seen appletalk to USB. Will the parallel to USB work under OS X?

Software:

Can I get drivers for (or find out if OS X supports) this printer? I went to the www.qms.com and it appears it's a discontinued printer, and the driver page confuses me... specifies "Macintosh" but doesn't specify whether it's for OS X or OS 9.

Please help!

Click to expand...

The serial port that you call AppleTalk was renamed LocalTalk when Apple changed its network protocol to work over a large variety of transports. Apple dropped LocalTalk with the introduction of the iMac. LocalTalk ports are not supported by MacOS X. AppleTalk over Ethernet is supported. Your QMS is a PostScript printer. Therefore, Apple's PostScript print driver should handle it without a hitch. PostScript printers are distinguished by their PPD files. The beauty of the PPD file is that it is plain ASCII text and is completely cross-platform. You can find the one that you need on the Konica-Minolta web site. To communicate with the printer, you will need to bridge LocalTalk and Ethernet. You might be able to find a bridge that serves that purpose. You may also buy a print server with a parallel port. Connect the Mac to the server via Ethernet. Connect the printer to the server via parallel printer cable.

macrumors G5

To communicate with the printer, you will need to bridge LocalTalk and Ethernet. You might be able to find a bridge that serves that purpose. You may also buy a print server with a parallel port. Connect the Mac to the server via Ethernet. Connect the printer to the server via parallel printer cable.

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